Problems with remote monitoring and managing of third-party devices in local area networks are usually caused by the difficulties in establishing communications between a remote managing entity and the third-party devices. For example, establishing communications with the third-party devices in the local area networks may be difficult because the devices may implement a variety of communications protocols and interfaces. In particular, it may be difficult to develop a management application configured to facilitate communications with a vast quantity of heterogeneous third-party devices, each of which may implement a different protocol or interface. The difficulties in developing such an application may cause problems in configuring the remote managing entity to be able to access and to remotely manage the devices.
Furthermore, it may be difficult for a remote managing entity to determine configurations of third-party devices in local area networks and collect network utilization information from the devices. For example, a remote managing entity may be unable to access the data indicating the types and identities of devices configured in the network. Even if various tools designed to discover the devices in a network are used, the tools may be helpful in discovering the devices in the network to which the remote managing entity belongs, not the devices in a separate local area network. Hence, the remote managing entity may be unable to even determine the configuration of the local area network, much less to collect network utilization information from each device.
However, as the complexity of computer networks increases, the ability to remotely monitor and manage devices in local area networks becomes more and more desirable. Often a user in a local area network is unable to manage the network himself, and may ask for some assistance from help desk operators from a service provider company. While the operators of the service provider company are willing to help, they may be unable to solve the user's problems if they cannot determine the configuration of the local area network or obtain network utilization information from the user's devices.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.